White House blocks GOP oversight requests, tells incoming chairmen to resubmit next congress

The White House is throwing up roadblocks against a flood of Republican-led Congressional oversight requests targeting the Biden Administration, telling incoming committee chairs that they will have to refile their demands once the GOP officially takes control of the House in January.

White House lawyer Richard Sauber said incoming Chairmen of the House Oversight and Judiciary Committees, Reps. James Comer of Kentucky and Jim Jordan of Ohio, respectively, lacked the authority to demand materials from the administration until the next Congress begins.

“Congress has not delegated [oversight] authority to individual members of Congress who are not committee chairmen, and the House has not done so under its current Rules,” Mr. Sauber wrote in letters to the two incoming chairmen.

The letter, which was sent early Thursday, was first reported by Politico.

The two Republicans peppered the White House with demands for documents and testimony from key officials in recent weeks in advance of an expansive agenda of hearings and probes into the Biden Administration next Congress.

Mr. Jordan has pledged to get to the bottom of what he says is a politicization of the FBI And Justice Department under the Biden Administration.

Mr. Comer is planning an extensive investigation into the president’s alleged entanglements with his son Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.

Both lawmakers blasted the administration for delaying the requests.

“President Biden promised to have the most transparent administration in history but at every turn the Biden White House seeks to obstruct congressional oversight and hide information from Americans,” Mr. Comer wrote on Twitter.

Mr. Sauber wrote that it would earnestly consider the lawmakers’ oversight requests once the GOP takes the gavels, but not until the chairmen resubmit them.

“Should the Committee issue similar or other requests in the 118th Congress, we will review and respond to them in good faith, consistent with the needs and obligations of both branches,” Mr. Sauber wrote. “We expect the new Congress will undertake its oversight responsibilities in the same spirit of good faith.”